


Atlantis, Mon Remora

by Nny



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, Fish Noir, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>That's me: Sam Whale, PI. It's spelled out in the shells, right there on the rock, so if she wanted my attention she was gonna have to do better than that. I went right on shuffling through the weedwork - nothing more recent than case of the crab clause. Times had been hard and the storm had returned; it wasn't a good year to be a Private Ichthyologist.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Atlantis, Mon Remora

**Author's Note:**

> For Mel.

I guess this is the kind of thing you get for being a lone shark, but you can't fight your nature and there's nothing that'll stop me swimming against the tide, no matter how deep it takes me. This case, though, this case took me to places and plaices I never thought I'd see, took me deep enough that even the pilot fish swam in pairs.

I wish I could say I knew she was trouble the moment she drifted into my current, wish I could say I knew her for a remora at first sight, but I've always been a sucker for a sucker. I'd thought I was done with women the second time I got arrested by my ex-wife, but this dame had a tail that could almost change my mind. That's how it's always been for me - an attenuating tail and a nice set of gills and I'm fin deep in seaweed with no way out. At least I've learned enough not to make it easy for them.

"So I guess you're Sam." She had the kind of voice that'd ruffle scales at fifty strokes, but I've been around the reef enough times to grow a thicker blubber than that.

"Sure," I said. That's me: Sam Whale, PI. It's spelled out in the shells, right there on the rock, so if she wanted my attention she was gonna have to do better than that. I went right on shuffling through the weedwork - nothing more recent than case of the crab clause. Times had been hard and the storm had returned; it wasn't a good year to be a Private Ichthyologist.

"Aren't you gonna invite me over?"

I flicked a pebble back on top of the weeds and rolled around to take a good look at her. She was floating a little above me, shadowed against the Light, but fish have jumped on hooks for less attractive silhouettes than that one. Perfectly groomed median fins, a caudal fin that was nearly transparent, and the kind of pouty labial papillae that drive the average fish wild. Good thing I've got a cynical streak as long as my backbone.

"It's a free ocean, angelfish."

She flicked her tail lazily and drifted a little closer.

"Welcoming attitude like that, it's no wonder you're so busy."

"Caudal like that, it's no wonder you're looking for help in _this_ neighbourhood."

She spun quicker than I could've predicted, and I had to admire the lines of her even as her tail heartily slapped the side of my face. And it hurt, sure, but I couldn't help grinning; it'd been a long time since I'd been slapped by such a beautiful fish. It was like being married all over again.

"Bottomfeeder," she snapped, and looked about ready to head for the shelves, and I didn't have the plankton reserves to get picky about who I worked for.

"Let me guess," I drawled, "looking for an ex who owes you money?"

She drifted to a stop and slowly turned to face me. The Light was still morning dim, a smear of orange overhead, and her face was in shadow.

"My brother," she said, and rocks would float for the tremble in her voice. How was I supposed to resist something like that?

 

===

 

The address she gave me was swarming with carps. She hadn't mentioned that - told me she'd come to me 'cos she was scared her brother had got mixed up with the Tigers, that the carps wouldn't be able to do anything to help her, but it looked like they were doing a pretty thorough job of it from where I was swimming. I bellied up a little closer to the scene, not quite subtle enough; I caught the eye of a mean looking fish who came right over, lean and cutting like a swordfish through the water.

"Who the krill are you?"

"Whale," I said, trying to get a glimpse past his pectoral fin, "Sam Whale. Who the krill are _you_?"

"Right. I've heard of you, _Sam_. I'm Ray," said the fish, swimming in close and aggressive, "Manta Ray Vecchio. And this here is Fraser."

He indicated the dolphin behind him with a shrug.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Whale."

I smirked. "He always talk like that?"

Vecchio flicked his tail irritably. "He's mammalian."

I was impressed, I admit - the size of him, the size of me, I could leave him floating belly up with a swat of my tail but he didn't back off for a second. Didn't stop me giving as good as I got.

"I should care who you are?" I twitched my tail, took a new tack, and he darted back in front of me again. This guy was starting to get on my gills.

"You should care that we got jurisdiction here, blubby, and we got no time for private ichs who want to be heroes. So why don't you take your oversized caudal peduncle and propel yourself out of here."

"Hey." I backstroked a little, acted all offended, "I'm here strictly unofficially. You see my Ichthyologist badge? I'm a friend of the family, is all, and - "

"Sure, you're a friend of the family. And I'm just a Great White with a dental problem." He twitched, a kind of full body ripple, and swam up so he could look me right in the eye. "Look, I got nothing personal against you. What I got is four fish missing and presumed belly up, no known connection, no evidence, and no plankton for going on two tides. You want to see the crime scene, you're gonna have to wait for the crimesquid pictures, just like everybody else." For a second I could see just how tired he was, how much the case was getting to him; carps don't get paid enough not to care about this shit.

Me? I sold my conscience a krill of a long time ago.

Another of those full body twitches, like he was shaking it off, and he headed away from me, back into the rocks.

"C'mon, Fraser."

The dolphin hung around for a second or two, like maybe he was thinking about saying something. I bobbed my head towards where his partner had disappeared, tried for friendly schmuck.

"Kinda crabby, ain't he?"

Turned out that was the wrong tack. He bared his teeth at me in what was a krill of a long way from a grin.

"I'd thank you not to use speciesist language on my crime scene," he said, eyes cold, and sped off after his partner. I figured I'd done just about all the damage I could do here, and swam off in search of fresh sand to turn over.

 

===

 

Turned out the fresh sand found _me_.

I'd been propelling myself around the sandbars, making tailwork, chasing up leads about the other fish that had disappeared recently. I'd like to say I never saw what hit me, but that's just 'cos I wanted to deny what was coming for me like I was blood in the water.

I shook it off, choked the sand out of my gills just in time for another slam in the side to send me towards the rocks. I flipped just in time, managed to hit it side on, but I couldn't take too many more hits like that. And it didn't look like fighting my way out was an option; the sharks were smaller than me but there were a krill of a lot of them, and gut _me_ they were fast. I flipped myself upright again, trying not to favour my left side too obviously, trying to look like I had no idea why they were on my tail. It's easy enough, when you don't.

"You fellas got a problem?"

The smallest shark laughed like I'd said the funniest thing he'd heard in tides, sharp and grating, and didn't shut up until one of the bigger ones cuffed him with his tail. The second-smallest came a little closer, and he sure was an ugly son-of-a-flatfish. If we were going by scars this one had to be the leader, and I tensed all my tail muscles, mouth stretching into the kind of urchin-eating grin that'd got me into more trouble than I care to think about.

"A little fishie told us you were looking for a friend of ours," he said, voice friendly and eyes blank.

"I make it a policy not to look for things that don't exist."

I didn't even see the next blow coming, but I sure as krill felt it, right in the gular region. When my vision steadied again one empty black eye was level with mine, and it was all I could do not to flinch back.

"You're lucky I like clown fish," he told me, low and even, and that was the first time in tide sequences that I'd appreciated my luck.

He swam off a little way then turned to face me again, his expression exactly as it had been all along.

"A little fishie," he said again, just exactly like the past few minutes hadn't happened, "told us you were looking for a friend of ours."

This time I actually thought about my response. Turns out miracles can happen, after all.

"It's possible," I said after a second. "I've got a lot of cases on."

"You have one case, Whale. One case and one office and one mother and isn't that nice? Everyone should have a mother."

The smallest shark laughed again, and I stayed silent and grit my teeth.

"This friend of ours," the shark continued, "took something that belonged to us, and that's not the kind of thing we can overlook. So when we see his fiancee hanging around your part of the 'bed we think to ourselves it's a - what's the word?"

"Public duty, boss," one of the larger sharks said.

"A public duty, right. It's a public duty to let you know that this fish you are looking for is saltier than you might be thinking."

"So you think I should stop looking for him?" I got no romance in my soul. Just because the dame lied about her fiance, it still means she lied, and I value my life too much to go up against sharks just for the sake of true love. True love, in my experience, lasts just a little bit longer than the wedding plankton.

"Oh no, we would never deprive you of your livelihood. We are honest businessmen, and we like to see other honest businessmen going about their work." He smiled slowly, showing me all his teeth - and that's a lot, with sharks. "We just think you should tell us where our friend is first. We wouldn't want to have to - "

And that's when the bubble hit him. Hard.

 

===

 

The other sharks had left a long time back, but I was still circling the strange heavy bubble. If there's one thing I've learned to trust it's my hunches, and something told me I could learn a lot from the heavy bubble and whatever was muttering inside it. I listened for anything that sounded like it could help, but the mutterer sounded like nothing more than the crazy moray that snaked around the 'bed, still talking to the wife he'd lost to the sharks twenty tide sequences ago.

And sure, a part of me thought it was a good idea to hang around in case the Tigers were still waiting somewhere nearby, too; there was a refracting shiver to the water around the bubble, like a less intense storm noise, and it was pounding through my head like the old days, like the sort of starfish they have to sell you under the counter. My ex can say what she likes about the many reasons we broke up, but I still wouldn't have stuck around any longer than the sharks if I didn't think I had to. Chances were they were long gone, turned tail and making bubbles, but it was best to be on the safe side.

I found myself turning things over endlessly in my mind, my brain circling to match the path I was swimming, moving from caudals that just don't quit to fiances to sharks to four fish belly up and the carp's face when he'd told me they had no connections, no evidence. From there I flipped weirdly to my strange willingness to trust shoals more folk than I ever had before, and from there I was right back to that damned beautiful silhouette, floating above me.

When my brain chose to include crazy colours in the water around me, gave me a weird red fish swimming past with a slug attached to its upper lip, I decided it was shallow time I got the krill out of there. When the other heavy bubble showed up, a little less heavy than the other, I was pretty convinced it was just the starfish talking. It almost moved like it was alive, coasting down to bump on the ocean floor, a strange phosphorescence slowly stretching from it to cover the first bubble, but I snapped out of my daze when I saw what happened next. No way I could have imagined _that_.

Part of the second bubble opened up, and something came out of it that was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It crunched along the 'bed - whatever it was doing, it sure as krill wasn't swimming - and lifted one weird-shaped fin to bang on the side of the first bubble, talking all the time. Something about 'shield', and 'walk', whatever that might be, like another language with a couple of words here and there I could recognise. Another creature followed it after a second, smaller, jerkier, lighter-coloured, and shifted back and forth like seaweed in a current. After a little while the first bubble opened, too, and they disappeared inside, emerging with another one like them. Looked like they were helping it to swim - to move - whatever it was they were doing, and I circled above them again. Resolution to leave or not, I had to see this through; my ma always told me that curiosity killed the catfish, but I'd never learned to listen to advice.

"Sorry pal," one of them called out - the mutterer from the first bubble (I recognised his voice) and I guess, in a weird way, my savior - "you don't get to eat me today."

I swear, this was the weirdest flip I'd ever been on.

 

===

 

There was silence for a while from the bubble. I was following at a discreet distance, but I was guessing they knew how well sound travelled in water; right up until one of them abruptly spoke.

"You can take over for a bit, right? It's on autopilot, just need you to keep track of the velocity."

I shook myself out of the daze I'd swum myself into, ignoring the pounding in my head so I could pay attention, learn what there was to find out.

"But - but I have not - "

"It'll be fine, trust me. I'll take over once we get to the surface; before that all we've got to do is make sure we're aimed upward, right?"

"And if I should smear fish over the windshield?"

I sped up a little at that, so I didn't miss anything.

"Then I guess we'll have another sample for the xenobiologists. Or, y'know, lunch."

Up until then it had pretty much been so many bubbles to me, but that last sentence made my blood run colder. Something in the bubble hissed, then the first voice spoke again, quieter.

"You okay, buddy?"

"C-cold."

"Yeah, I know. Here - "

"But - Zelenka - "

"He's busy. Just - jeez, McKay, get over here would you?"

I was barely listening. It was pretty clear what had happened to the four missing fish, now; apparently staying away from the Shallows was no longer enough to keep you safe from the hook.

"John - "

"Shh, rest, okay?" There were soft, muffled noises coming from the bubble, but I didn't have the attention to waste on trying to figure out what they were. "We'll get back to the others soon." The voices were fading as I let them get further in front of me, but if what they'd talked about was true I was probably best off well out of it. This was a matter for the carps, and even they were going to have a krill of a hard time finding anything to do.

Nobody was going to be happy with the evidence I had to give them but there was no fighting it - there was a new threat around, and life was gonna be a krill of a lot more difficult for the fish in these parts.

But krill, business was gonna be _good._


End file.
